Jarrett Walker's personal notes on places, arts, plants, and the search for home.

2015.05.17

Now and then I encounter an old piece of writing that seems ready to go ...

Washington DC, a brilliant, surprisingly warm winter day, the day before the president's second inauguration. I'm walking from Georgetown toward Dupont Circle, holding the bottle of water that I'd bought when I'd noticed myself dehydrating. As always, it was a purchase tinged with resentment. I missed the gentle four-armed drinking fountains of tap water of home, whose absence had forced me to fund, yet again, the great bottled-water scam.

I pause on the bridge over Rock Creek, step aside into one of those pedestrian alcove spaces that certain old bridges have around their pillars, set the water bottle down to gaze into the cold creek.

I hear "… the American middle class. In fact, the American middle class is so feeble that they can't even walk down the street without a bottle of water." … then a mumble as he passed and then again, as they walked on … "the American middle class (grumble) (lecture) …" I saw his face briefly as he went by, with a nodding companion who was the audience of his lecture. Short, intense, forties probably, striding fast, his anger as natural as breathing.

After that, the bottled water, and the view of Rock Creek, tasted ever so slightly better ...